Dealing with postpartum depression

Posted: Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Postpartum depression is a reality throughout the world, affecting between 10 percent to 15 percent of all women who give birth. Postpartum depression manifests itself in shifting mood swings, anxiety, irritability, and in some cases, intrusive thoughts about harming the newborn.

Bogart resident Lauren Hale is more than familiar with postpartum depression and the effect it can have on a household. With three children under the age of 4 - including a baby boy born in late December - Hale has twice experienced the difficulties of the disorder and has worked for the past year to help other mothers in the Athens area cope with their feelings of depression.

"I was inspired to establish a group after my second battle with postpartum depression landed me in a mental ward in Gainesville due to a reaction to medication," said Hale, a New Jersey native who has lived in the Athens area for seven years. "Postpartum is such a special subset, and it's nice to have another mom to talk to, but I couldn't find anything like that around here."

Hale contacted Postpartum Support International and found immediate assistance in establishing a local support group for women called PACE (Postnatal Psychiatric Disorder Acceptance Through Compassion and Education). For the past year, Hale's group has met from 7-9 p.m. on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at Nui's Space in Athens.

"We're now into our second year," she said. "Attendance is kind of low - we usually have between one to three moms, and sometimes no one at all. But even if nobody shows up, I'll be there, usually working on some postpartum depression related research or activity."

When asked if relatively low turnouts are a function of a lack of publicity, a lack of mothers suffering from postpartum depression or mothers who are affected but don't want to be identified, Hale said, "It's probably a combination. I haven't done a lot lately to get the word out because I was pregnant myself, and there are some moms who feel the group setting just isn't right for them. And then there are others who relate postpartum depression with postpartum psychosis, which is an entirely different thing."

Postpartum depression often is misunderstood by the general public, but Hale said she can speak from experience that sometimes it goes unrecognized in the medical community.

"My first child was born in South Carolina, and by the time I was discharged from the hospital, postpartum depression was discovered," she said. "When I went to my doctor, he was completely dismissive of the situation and refused to medicate me. And when I gave birth to my third child, I was not given any (postpartum depression) literature or spoken to by anybody at the hospital."

Hale said her first bout with postpartum depression came after she gave birth to her and her husband Chris' first child, Allison, nearly four years ago and continued unabated when their daughter Charlotte was born nearly two years ago.

"My first case of postpartum depression was highly untreated - I basically battled it out on my own," she recalled. "The depression never went away and continued through my second pregnancy. Thirty minutes after my second child was born, it was discovered she had a cleft palate, which meant we were taking her back and forth to the Scottish Rite Hospital in Atlanta."

On the day of Charlotte's surgery, Hale said her husband "confronted her" about her symptoms, and she began treatment, though she was definitely on a rocky road.

"My husband is in the restaurant business and is away a good bit," Hale said. "I had a 2-year-old and a baby with medical challenges. I couldn't leave the house at all - it was pretty intense."

When the couple found out they were expecting a third child, Hale admitted she was scared of the potentially debilitating depression she was facing. Reading Karen Kleiman's 'What Am I Thinking? Having a Baby After Postpartum Depression' helped me a lot because it said it's OK to be scared, as long as it's a healthy kind of nervousness."

Determined to take a potential battle on her own terms, Hale began blogging, which she said "changed my whole point of view of my pregnancy" and continued the therapy and treatment she'd started after the birth of her second child. She also became a co-coordinator for the Georgia chapter of Postpartum Support International and an iVillage community leader.

"I had a lot of knowledgeable, strong, caring women who knew about postpartum depression surrounding me," she said. "During my pregnancy, it made an incredible difference."

And now she's trying to make a similar difference with other affected mothers. Hale said most PACE meetings include conversation and a question-and-answer period.

"I make it clear at the meetings that I'm not a counselor - I'm peer support," she said. "I'm a mom who's been there and done that. I want to help normalize the experience and just talk about what's going on. It can sometimes get emotional, depending on where the moms are at during the meeting."

On March 28, Hale will share her experiences at a lunch-and-learn session sponsored by the Mental Health America (formerly known as the National Mental Health Association) at Skyland Trail in Atlanta.

She'll be joined by Dr. Jeffrey Newport, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University's School of Medicine and associate director of the Emory Women's Mental Health Program, and Katherine Stone, whose blog Postpartum Progress (www.postpartumprogress.typepad.com) is America's most widely read online journal on the subject.

Perhaps the day will come when Hale is no longer troubled by postpartum depression, but she intends to continue to be an advocate for area mothers who are suffering.

"I'm planning to apply to the University of Georgia's School of Social Work to become a therapist and work with moms who have postpartum depression," she said. "I'm hoping to be accepted in fall 2009."

For more information on the twice-monthly PACE meetings at Nui's Space, visit www.ppdacceptance.org.